Psychedelic Spokane church working toward legal immunity to consume ayahuasca, a sacred tea considered both a powerful m

[Judi Lynn]

Psychedelic Spokane church working toward legal immunity to consume ayahuasca, a sacred tea considered both a powerful mood stabilizer and a risky experiment
March 3, 2024 Updated Sun., March 3, 2024 at 5:01 p.m.



Connor Mize is the local leader of the Church of Gaia, a religious organization that consumes ayahuasca, a psychedelic tea, as sacrament. His followers are waiting to perform their mind-altering ceremonies on U.S. soil until the DEA gives them legal immunity. (COLIN MULVANY/THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW)


By Tod Stephens
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As early as this spring, the federal government could allow members of a Spokane religious congregation to lay on the grassy floor of a nondescript building to consume their sacrament – a hallucinogenic tea from South America known as ayahuasca.

The tea is bitter and thick. Brewed from two Amazonian plants, ayahuasca can more closely be described as a watery sludge than a tea. The drink has been consumed by tribes in South America for thousands of years but is illegal in the U.S., though the government has largely looked the other way as these groups, which consider themselves churches, host ceremonies where it’s consumed en masse.

“I’m willing to bet there are folks who have connections to psychedelic churches in every county in this country,” said Pat Donahue, a self-proclaimed psychedelic lawyer from Spokane.

They argue that possessing and consuming psychoactive substances is intrinsic to their religious virtues and thus protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

More:
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2024/mar/03/psychedelic-spokane-church-pushing-for-legal-immun/










- click link below for image -

https://img6.arthub.ai/64b8331f-ec20.webp

Ayahuaska-inspired images.